Hudson Bay
by gladdecease
Summary: Dwight. Pam. A deserted island. One week. For ipod ovenmitt's rare pair exchange.


"Pam."

She doesn't move.

"Pam."

Subtly shoving her hands in her ears, she carefully does not sigh. He would notice.

"Pam. Pam Pam Pam. Paaaaaaaam."

Giving up, she rolls over and sits up. "What?"

Dwight smiles at her. "It's time to wake up. It's almost peak calling-for-help hours."

--

They've been here for a week. Just the two of them.

Let her restate it: a week. Seven days. With Dwight. _Alone_.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the last day or so he's been acting...weird. Well, no, clearly that's not the right word to use--it's _Dwight_, when hasn't he always been a little weird--so okay, he's been acting _different_. Different works better.

But it's weird, Dwight acting different.

--

They relight the fire Dwight started the first day, which has grown progressively smaller as they've run out of dry wood. Pam sits by the fire, making sure no stray winds put them out, while Dwight spells out a message in the sandy beach by making grooves in the sand. High tide always erodes it, but he puts it up again each day.

He limps towards her, dragging his foot to spell out the center line of H, saying, "How's it look, Pam?"

"Pretty good, Dwight."

"Any sign of a boat?"

"No."

He lifts his foot, carefully walks back through the line he's drawn, and drags another line down the far side. He repeats the motion for the long side of E, then drags a foot back towards Pam. "How's it look, Pam?"

"Pretty good, Dwight."

"Any sign of a boat?"

"No."

He starts on the L, and Pam holds back a sigh, hoping that the question isn't coming again.

But sure enough: "How's it look, Pam?"

"The same as it did before, Dwight."

That stops him in his tracks, one foot mid-loop of the P. "When was that?"

"About five minutes ago."

"...oh."

Pam sits up (having been watching clouds float past for the last five minutes). "What is it?"

Dwight frowns, slowly raising a hand to the side of his head. "I don't--"

When he curls over and starts vomiting, Pam realizes that this 'stranded on an island' business is more dangerous than she thought.

--

She's no doctor, but Pam recognizes a concussion when she sees one.

Roy had one after a game in their junior year, when the other team's halfback got a good tackle in. They'd won the game, in the end, and he was standing there, smiling at the crowd (she'd been so _proud_ to be his girlfriend), when his eyes glazed over and he collapsed. His parents hadn't come to the game, so she'd driven him to the hospital. The doctor had given her a pamphlet and told her some things about what they did to help him, and now she's struggling to remember them to help Dwight.

Something about MRIs, or CAT scans, to check for bleeding. Not like they have a spare one on this island, so scratch that. What else? Rest. No overworking, keep an eye out for more vomiting or passing out. Okay. Okay, she can do that.

She leads Dwight back to the patch of flat ground they've designated their home base, makes him lie down on his side. It isn't easy--he keeps giggling to himself, flinging his arms around, and how could she have thought that this was Dwight being different when it's Dwight being sick--but she gets him to promise to stay there.

He stares up at her and says it in a really childlike voice. "I promise, Pam." It feels weird. Dwight's never been this vulnerable before, ever. She's never been responsible for the life or death of someone his age. She doesn't know if she can keep him alive. Biting her lip, she paces the signal fire, thinking desperately of what she can do. What she has to do.

She comes up with a list of necessities:  
- Food  
- Fresh water  
- Keep the fire up  
- Keep Dwight awake

Food and water are fine--they're in a lake, not the ocean, and Dwight identified some leaves that he called "edible, if you're desperate". Plus she might have a chocolate bar hiding in one of the zipper pockets of the bag that washed ashore with them. The dry wood is completely gone, from what she's seen, but maybe green wood will work better. She remembers her dad not using it when they went camping when she was little, because of the smoke, but in this case smoke might actually be a good thing.

It will take time to gather food, and enough wood for the fire, though, and that puts item number four in a difficult place.

--

"Dwight," she says quietly, "I have to go gather wood. Will you be okay while I'm gone?"

He blinks slowly. "We have wood, Pam."

"No, we already used that wood. I'm going to get more wood. Will you be okay?"

"I--" His eyes go slightly out of focus. "I'll be okay."

"Okay." Pam gets up slowly and leaves, making sure she's in his field of vision the entire time. "Just, stay there, please. Can you do that, Dwight?"

Dwight leans back against the tree trunk, wincing slightly. "Of course I can," he says, and it sounds so much like normal-Dwight that Pam pauses before finally leaving.

"I trust you, Pam."

She jerks around to stare at him, but he just blinks at her and waves.

--

The leaves are harder to find than she thought (and higher up in the trees than she remembers), but she gets several handfuls and calls it enough for today. Pam collects five or six large armfuls of wood to put on the fire, which take a long time to light, but burn with a satisfyingly dark smoke. She watches it go up, thick and black against the deep blue sky, then goes back to Dwight.

"Hi Pam," he slurs tiredly. "You're back."

"I am." She rubs at his arm, feeling a little awkward but not knowing what else to do.

"Where did you go?"

She stops rubbing, surprised and a little upset, and he grumbles, "No, don't stop. It's nice, like Monkey."

"Monkey?"

Dwight giggles. "Monkey and D."

"Dwight?" Pam starts rubbing at his arm again, but his attention's been drawn to whatever daydream he's having. His blinking has slowed, and so has his breathing. She pinches his arm once, hard, and he jerks up.

"Ow," he says blankly, forcing bleary eyes open to glare at her. "That hurt, Pam."

"You need to stay awake, Dwight."

"Why? Don't wanna," he says. He leans back against the tree, and when Pam pinches him again he only groans in mild complaint.

"Because...because..." she fumbles for an idea, pinching his arms and wishing she could do more, but not wanting to move his head. "If you don't, if you fall asleep, you'll never see the end of Battlestar Galactica!" She winces as soon as the sentence leaves her mouth, but really, what else does she have? She doesn't know much of anything about Dwight besides the office and his scifi, and saying that Michael wants him to is her only backup.

Dwight tilts his head awkwardly to look down at her. "I...won't?"

She's only surprised that it's working for a second, then starts on the followup. "Uh, yeah! Just think: you'll never know what happens to Starbuck--"

"--Starbuck has pretty hair."

"--right, the one with the pretty hair. You'll never find out what happens to her. And you'll never find out if they get to Earth..."

"Pam."

"Or who the Final Five are!" So she might have watched some of the show before, so sue her. Just because Dwight likes it doesn't mean she can't enjoy it too.

"Pam."

"Or--yeah, Dwight?"

"I won't fall asleep."

He sounds almost like normal-Dwight again, and she leans in to get a closer look at his eyes. They aren't completely focused, but it's not as bad as the half-asleep look he had on a minute ago. "You won't?"

"I won't."

"That's...good. That's good, Dwight." She pats his arm again. "Good." It's good that Dwight won't fall asleep. Sleeping is bad for people with concussions. It's...a sign of brain damage? Or something. Pam blinks slowly. She can't think clearly.

"Pam."

"Huh?" She looks up at Dwight, and hey, that's weird. When did her head get in his lap? But it's surprisingly comfortable, and he isn't saying anything, so she'll stay there. "Yeah, Dwight?"

"You can sleep."

"I..." she yawns. "No I can't. Dwight. I have to make sure you don't fall asleep."

"I won't," Dwight says. "I promise."

Dwight's promise is as good as...as a really good thing, Pam knows, so it's okay. He kept his other promises, he'll keep this one. She trusts him.

--

Pam wakes to the sound of voices she doesn't recognize. Her head has moved off of Dwight's lap to rest between the roots of a tree, which is good. Going to sleep in his lap was embarrassing enough. She sits up slowly, rubbing a crick out of her neck, and looks around.

Dwight's standing up, leaning against the same tree as her, on the other side. She shakes his shoulder, and he snaps around, shushing her with a finger against his mouth. Feeling a bit silly, she copies the motion and rises to her feet.

"What's going on," she whispers loudly.

"I don't know," he says. "And be quiet. They might find us."

"Who might?"

Dwight stares at her like she's said something particularly stupid, and for once she relishes the expression. It feels like it's been forever since Dwight looked at her with disdain. He gestures towards the shore, where the voices are coming from. "Them! Those people, over there."

"Don't we want them to find us? So we can get off this island?" Pam asks, not bothering to whisper. "Isn't that why we lit that fire and wrote words in the sand?"

"Yes, but--"

"Allo? Est-ce qu'il y a quelqu'un dans là?"

Dwight stares at Pam. "French. You see? You've brought the French down on us."

Pam wants to laugh, same as any other time Dwight acts ridiculous like this. But also because it's been a week since she's seen a single person but Dwight, and some variety is going to be well appreciated. "Dwight, they're Canadians."

"_French_ Canadians."

"They can help us. Get us out of here." She walks to the beach, spotting a large boat in the distance, and a small boat approaching the burnt-out fire she'd set the day before. "Hey!" She jumps and shouts and waves, until the boat's rower them spots her. He introducing himself as a fisherman named Paul who spotted the smoke from his boat this morning. He can take them to the nearest city, a port town in Quebec. Dwight comes out of the woods with some persuasion, and just like that, they're saved.

--

They put out the fire completely, collect all of their things, and get into Paul's little rowboat. Dwight stares at something over Pam's shoulder, silent, while she watches the fishing boat slowly approach. She resists the urge to look back until they reach the fishing boat. He'd been staring at the island. She watches it disappear, until it becomes nothing more than a faint streak of gray smoke against the blue-gray morning.

Over the churning of the boat's engine, Dwight says, "You proved to be surprisingly capable at surviving in the wilderness, Pam. You've moved up on my list of people I'd want to be stranded on an island with."

Pam looks at the gray sky, smiles, and says, "Thanks, Dwight. You too."


End file.
